I Remember It Well
by i love alex
Summary: She marries Matt the year she graduates and falls pregnant the year after.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Leading off from their final scene in 3x14. Warning of severe angst (aka get your tissues ready).

She hated herself a lot longer than she should've. Spent months, years going over the words she could've said, what she should've done. Asking herself whether she could've been better for him, fought harder for _them_. If doing it all differently would've change things. If she had locked the door, forced him to stay there with her until he agreed.

Agreed to what, though, she thinks. To love her again?

He leaves without telling anyone, including Damon who seems to fall deeper into a hole he can barely crawl his way out of without the help of alcohol and a lot more blood. Elena thinks he's lost his mind but can't do anything about it because she honestly thinks she's lost hers too.

One night when they're alone and he's staring at the front door she gets up, kisses his cheek, pushes her face against his ear and whispers that _it's okay_. Like she knew he wanted to leave before he did.

He's gone by sundown. He doesn't ask her to come with and she doesn't offer.

Klaus, Elijah and the rest of their family perish, as Esther had promised but somehow it doesn't make any difference. None whatsoever, with them both gone.

A year passes and she loses the meaning of time and tries to trick herself into believing that time didn't matter at all. That it didn't make any difference.

Jeremy comes back. That makes a difference, if not the most progressive and she finds herself falling back, almost too easily, into a life that didn't require her to wonder if she'd make it through the day.

She marries Matt the year she graduates and falls pregnant the year after.

There's something about being pregnant that she just can't put her finger on. There's something about the way her belly stretches and she stretches and that this thing growing inside of her stomach somehow belonged to her.

It's a hell of a pregnancy, even for her first one. She vomits almost every day. Twice in a day if she's lucky. Three times if she's not. Matt starts taking Mondays off and then Fridays even though she grumbles and complains that he didn't need to and that he'd be wasting his maternity leave the architect company he worked at was giving him. But he ignores her, gets her to sit on the couch and plants her feet in his lap because he was completely crazy about her and completely crazy about this baby they were having together.

She's crazy about it too. Scared as hell but excited. Nervous. She lies awake most nights worrying about all the things that could go wrong. Thinking about all the things that already have.

She'll love this baby. She'll love it and love Matt and love this life, she will, she tells herself on the nights that are the longest.

Finding that it wasn't exactly a lie if she believed it enough to pretend that it wasn't even a lie to begin with.

* * *

><p>Stefan paces the floor of the greyhound bus depot in a small shack town in the middle of nowhere. The bus had been scheduled to come in around 6 but it's running late, almost 20 minutes past the hour. He hates waiting.<p>

He doesn't do too much waiting these days, travelling from state to state and revisiting the parts of America he'd been missing and felt like rediscovering. He's a nomad but he likes it and he's used to it. He doesn't stop anywhere for longer than a period of a month because he doesn't want to fall in love with any place even though he knows nowhere is going to feel like the place he fell in love with most. But, he fears it, knowing that he could. Knowing that he could set up a home and a life away from Mystic Falls that would be just as good, if not better than the life he had set up there. The life, he left there.

Elena, that life.

She's the color of the sky when it's just tinted purple and in another's women's laughter that doesn't sound quite right but fills his ears enough for him to imagine that it is, that it's her perfect laughter.

He walked away from her that night, not thinking he was going to leave. Not thinking it was going to be the last time he saw her but knowing it had to be. Knowing that there was no other choice even though his heart pounded and his chest pounded and he cried for those first two days without her, cried for two days straight.

Two years have gone by and he can picture her face, could draw it with his eyes closed across the palms of his hands.

He has no idea how she is, no way of knowing. When Damon found him, he told him that she was fine, that she was planning to graduate and go to college. He talks to his brother every other day, maybe every other third day if they're both stuck in places where they can't get to a phone. His brother seems happier in Europe that he ever remembered him being and yet Stefan knows, can tell just by his voice that it was tipped against something else entirely; the way he was trying to be happy without her.

Stefan stops moving, ducking his body when he hears, so clearly, the sound of a bus engine. It's still a few miles away but he starts to prepare himself, dragging himself over to the darkest corner of the terminal where visibility was best. He's been drinking human blood, though he doesn't kill. Slipping into his brother's steady routine of being able to rob a person blind but fix them up and leave them like he'd found them. He can't really understand how it became easy to not want to mindlessly tear people apart but he thinks it has something to do with the distance and the way he fell into caring about anything else, needing to, above caring about her.

The feed lasts less than 10 minutes and he compels the man before fading into the cool night air of the south. He's found himself a little apartment just off a main road and he's fond of it, it was completely hidden anyway and he could be protected, invisible, from anything or anyone.

Which is why he's surprised to find Matt Donavan sitting outside on the porch, looking as though finding him had been easy.

* * *

><p>She wishes her mother were there.<p>

To say the right thing and tell her what to do even though her mother had always let her children make their own decisions and learn from their mistakes.

Having a baby wasn't a decision.

Though losing a baby really wasn't either.

* * *

><p>Matt doesn't look much different to the last time Stefan saw him. And it's almost been three years. He's grown a couple inches taller and looks fuller. Looks like a man rather than a boy and Stefan wonders if he should be seeing the irony of that as much as he is.<p>

Matt doesn't say anything, looking at the floor and for a person who had travelled miles to see him, Stefan finds it odd that the need to speak didn't seem to be a need at all.

He takes a couple steps and leans up against the wooden poles of his porch, thinking already, his throat aching the same way it always seemed to whenever he thought of her, of Elena.

She's dead, he suddenly imagines, that's why Matt was here, and he almost loses his grip on the wood and he's so lost, overcome by the mere thought to notice that Matt had come to stand, now looking right at him.

"She's not dead." He spits out hard, like he's read Stefan's mind but Stefan knows that his entire resolve just went from being steadily calm to an obvious panic in less than a couple seconds. He needs to swallow a few times before he can speak.

"Why are you here then?"

Matt looks away with a smile on his lips that is too bitter and too desperate to come off the way he's probably hoping that it does.

"What, Matt?" Stefan asks, maybe a little too loudly and Matt drops back into the chair behind him like he couldn't keep standing. When he looks up again, there are tears on his cheeks.

"She lost our baby."

It's like he's been kicked in the mouth. He stumbles backwards, turning his back to Matt and almost trips down the porch steps. The words don't make logical sense in his brain even though he's picturing it all, her pregnant and her married and her older and beautiful and together and perfect. Just the way he hoped and wanted.

"She won't talk to me, she won't talk to anyone. I don't know what to do anymore, I won't take her to a hospital but I can't lose her, Stefan."

Stefan wrings his hands through his hair. He's trying to breathe clearer because it's not coming out right at all and it's overwhelming, the sudden sadness that seems to push down on him. The grief for her, for what she had lost. And _fuck_, she had lost too much.

In his mind, he has already left but he feels Matt, just behind him, opening his mouth to ask anyway.

"Please Stefan, I think you're the only person who could help right now."

In his mind, he is already there.

* * *

><p>She's asleep more than she is awake but it feels like she's caught in this dream, like she's unsure what's floating around in her mind and what's floating around in reality.<p>

It wasn't anything she did or ate or said or any mistake she made. It just happened because sometimes things just happen without cause or reason. When the Doctor had told her that, squeezing her arm before the operation that would remove the dead and unborn baby, Elena could feel the cracks in her spine like it was breaking the same way her heart had.

Matt's gone and she knows it, had known all along even though they all think that she didn't. She knows she's on the verge of tipping right over that cliff or falling before she even had the chance to look.

So she doesn't blame him for leaving. Not even a little bit because she sleeps, and leaves too.

* * *

><p>It takes them two and a half days. Matt drives the entire way even though he's not in any state to but he insisted and Stefan had let him, knowing there would be no point in arguing it. He could've used his speed and reached Mystic Falls quicker but leaving Matt alone would be more dangerous than having him drive his truck down a highway as he's crying and trying to shift gears at the same time.<p>

They come up to a house Stefan doesn't recognize but figures belonged to the two of them now that they were married and had adult lives. They needed an adult house. But it looks nothing like anything she'd pick out and that pisses him off a little even though it was none of his business anymore, what type of house she might or might not like.

"It happened a week ago. She had to have surgery on Monday. She hasn't said anything since. She won't get out of bed or hardly eat anything. We both cried when it happened but she hasn't cried again. She just…she isn't there and it scares me. I can't do it, I can't be in the house anymore, I can't be there knowing I can't help her."

Stefan nods and pushes open his car door, moving in a way that didn't allow hesitation or second guesses. He hasn't had to be brave in a while; feels like he can barely be brave for this. He can't blame Matt for giving up because he gave up on her that night too.

The house is too quiet; the only sound he can hear is her heart beating, slowly, like it's forgotten how to do half the work it should be doing. He heads for the bottom of the stairs, thinking as he takes each step, about how he should do this without scaring her. But as he comes to the landing, he knows that there was no real way to come back into her life again, at this moment, now, to be here for her. No real way that wasn't anything but scary.

She's awake, her body on the side of the bed furthest from the door and for a moment that feels impossibly short, he watches her in private. She's too thin, he can tell even with the layers of clothing she had on. He hadn't noticed how cold it was before but the air seems to press up against him as he looks at her bundled up beneath sweaters, jackets and a thick blanket.

"You came for me."

His head falls against the side of the doorway because he suddenly can't keep it up right; she's too small, drowning in that bed of blankets and layers.

"I always knew you would."

His feet seem to carry him into the room, seem to carry him over to her before his mind has caught up but it's like he's been pulled towards her. Like he's been pushed, effortlessly and with such a force that makes him question how he could've possibly been apart from her to begin with.

"Of course I did." He whispers and pulls back the sheets, wriggling his hands beneath the curve of her back.

He kisses against her hair, feeling her bones and her heart and her grief, pushing against his own and walks them both out of that bedroom, out of that house.

Towards something else entirely.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Thank you for all the sweet feed back, you guys are awesome.

* * *

><p>She ends up sleeping for a couple days in his bed and he worries through the hours, keeping watch from a chair.<p>

He'll bathe her and make her eat, he thinks just as the suns coming up on the second day through the glass panels of his balcony window. He'll change her clothes and brush her hair, get her to sit up and talk to him. Scream and hit him, let it out.

He'll fix her, he thinks, he will.

But when she does wake up, she gets out of bed, drags her way over to his bathroom and turns the water on herself. He's so startled by the entire thing that it takes him a full 30 seconds to be able to move.

"Help me." She says and he finds her standing in the middle of the shower, still clothed, not having the energy to take them off herself.

She watches him as he does. Piece by delicate piece, slowly and carefully. Gently. He hesitates when she's down to her underwear and stands back and turns around, ignoring that his chest has started to cave in a little because he saw that scar curl like a wire just over the elastic band of her blue underwear.

"Stefan, look at me." She whispers and Stefan turns, staring at her eyes that are filled with tears, knowing that his are filled with them too. Knowing that he was so in love with her, knowing he might not be enough, that it wasn't ever really about being enough anyway.

"What…what can I do, tell me what I can do."

And Elena bows her head, bending down as she pulled off her underwear, coming to stand again once she had.

"Hold me." Is all she says but he's coming forward and crushing against her before she can get all the words out.

"I'm so sorry, I'm so so sorry."

Somewhere between her falling, unable to keep standing and him holding her against him, clutching tighter and tighter, the water of the shower seems to start and the sobs that had been so stuck in her before seem to fall out all at once.

* * *

><p>She's fully dressed, wearing a shirt he didn't know he still had and her sweat pants, lying across his bed when he comes back upstairs, bringing with him two bowls and a cereal box.<p>

"All we have but it's fresh…I hope."

She begins to laugh, soft and muffled but catches herself, bringing her hand up to her face like she's just said something she shouldn't have and he walks into the room, pretending, for her benefit, that he hadn't heard anything at all.

They stayed in the shower for a long while and he washed her hair and washed her back as she sat against him, crying and crying. It was something. She had slept, showered and cried and it was something.

They eat in silence, her feet crossed beneath her and his slumped over the side of his bed.

"This is good." She says and digs her fingers back into her bowl. He hadn't given her much but she had almost finished all of it.

Stefan smiles, setting his bowl back on the ground. She stops, mid chew when they catch eyes.

She frowns, tilting her head to one side, looking suspicious, "Do I really look that bad?"

Stefan shakes his head, fiddling with a bit of his blanket with a smile on his face he can't seem to get rid of.

"No no, you look good."

Elena drops the leftover food from her hands, putting her bowl on the ground. She sits back against the headboard, tucking her knees up to her chest. Her hair was still wet, she hadn't bothered to comb or brush it back and it sticks a little to the sides of her face.

Stefan, without thinking about it, reaches forward and tucks it back behind her ears. Elena closes her eyes, "Stop." She whispers and he can't, doesn't. Coming forward to brush his fingers over her forehead, trailing down across the skin beneath her eyes.

"You're okay."

But Elena shakes her head, bringing her chin to her chest and starts to cry.

"I'm not, I'm _not_."

Stefan, pulling his hand back, draws into himself. Wanting to do more, knowing he had done enough.

"This happened because I didn't want her." She cries and he's sure the ground will give way beneath them. _Her_, he thinks and closes his eyes as Elena curls herself into a ball. Her, he pictures. Her, he says under his breath and Elena only seems to cry harder.

He finds himself bringing his hand to her back, rubbing circles that don't meet up but seem to continue on anyway. She cries until she can't anymore, falling into a light sleep again and his hand keeps those circles going because he's pretty sure he's close to breaking down completely without her. For her. For how fucked up this all was.

_Her_, he circles into her back.

* * *

><p>"Matt left me."<p>

He's standing in front of the fire in the library and twists quickly around to find her up on the landing; it was late and she had been asleep for hours. He should've heard her coming down the stairs but hadn't and he wonders if maybe, he has just let himself forget that she was even there at all.

She curls her hand around one of the posts of the banister that wrapped itself around the room and he watches as she sways a little, a faint smile on her face.

"_You_ left me." She continues and he knew where this was going before she even had to say it. He starts to walk towards her, feeling like his body was ten feet below the ground. Like moving at all took all he had left and when he gets to her, rubbing his hand across the small of her back, he's exhausted.

"I'm not leaving you now." He says as she turns against him, curling her arms to wrap around his neck; she's only half awake, he can tell, her eyes a grey disconnect.

"Take me to bed." She whispers.

He thinks he's half asleep too, maybe has been all this time and gently lifts her up, bringing her legs around his waist, walking them both back upstairs.

She falls asleep and he traces lines across her cheeks.

"I'll make you better." He whispers, knowing that he wasn't supposed to.

He'd give her the entire world if he could. Would've given her everything even though he left her and she lost the only thing he couldn't give her at all.

* * *

><p>"I want to go swimming." She tells him. It's past midnight and pouring with rain.<p>

"Where?" He asks, pretending that they could leave this room even though she could barely open her eyes to even look at him.

"The coast of Mexico." She mumbles with a smile and Stefan drops his journal onto the table, coming around the bed and sitting against it, reaching to take her hand.

"I'll take you." He promises and she closes her eyes again like that's all she wanted. Like it's enough.

"I'll take you too." She whispers and her hand loosens just before he can squeeze it, going lifeless and limp.

He pretends that it's the rain he hears as he chases animals through it, pretends that it's the rain and not his sobs that seem to rip and tear through him.

* * *

><p>She's only wearing a pair of shorts as she stands at the long mirror, studying her body. It's less frail these days, she has more skin and more weight from the food he's been making her eat. She still sees the shell though, the lining of what used to be. What should be.<p>

Her finger finds the mark, the thin line of a scar where they had to cut her open. "I'm sorry." She whispers and finds that when she meets her eyes on the mirror, she's crying tears she can't feel on her cheeks.

She traces the line over and over, like it would maybe disappear. Restarting her finger over it when she realizes that it doesn't.

"Enough." He says quietly and takes her hand, takes her body, bringing her back to bed, "It's enough now." She hears and closes her eyes, thinking that it was.

It was enough.

* * *

><p>They stay together in that house for two years before leaving it, leaving the town for good. Even though neither of them say it aloud, they both know. It had to be it, had to be final.<p>

"We'll go to Paris last." He sighs into her hair when they're lying in his bed late one night. He was going to show her the world, every last inch.

Elena smiles, rubbing at his chin, "And why, my sweet love, would you keep me from Paris?"

He kisses against her ear, "Because if we go there first, you won't want to see anything else."

She laughs as she reaches over for the light and they move their bodies to lay flat, holding one another's wrist and thinking private thoughts as they looked around the dark room.

"It happened today, you know."

He did know, wondered when she was going to mention it. Assumed she wasn't going to mention it at all.

Stefan pulls her hand up to his mouth and kisses her palm, "It happened today." He repeats and doesn't say anything else.

"Did you come back, knowing you could make it better or thinking you'd leave if it got worse."

The tears are in her throat, the memories, all of them in her words and though his heart seems to break, like it did all those months ago, he moves closer to her so that they were suddenly joined in the middle.

"I came back not knowing if I could help, not knowing if I could understand. Knowing I wouldn't be able to ever leave you again even if I didn't."

Elena hides herself in his shoulders, in his limbs as she pulled her clothes off and then his.

He traces her scar, like he always does right before, then lays his palm flat when she's beneath him, staring with eyes that held the sky.

"Nothing ever leaves you." She whispers, her thumb at his bottom lip, feeling the tiny cracks of it.

Stefan moves away from her stomach, coming to her face, as they seemed to slip into one another, hitching on breathes; her eyes flutter closed for a second or two before they reopen to look at him.

"Nothing ever should." He tells her.


End file.
